Raindrops keep falling ...

… on my head, on the streets and - in today's post - mainly on the flowers. The first flowers I saw this morning were these freshly emerged sweet peas poking through a neighbour's railings

Freshly washed leaves glistening under this morning's cloud cover.

We had a visit from Twydor (AKA @tudortheplumber on Twitter, if you're in the Bath area and need somebody good at all sorts of home repair stuff) talking about updating our kitchen. After this, I had an appointment at the Temple Apple Store - my old laptop battery was giving me alerts. The cheap 3-year warranty I purchased as a University lecturer covered the replacement there and then, so Apple yet again score on customer service. Company policy dictated that I wasn't allowed to photograph the "Genius" who sorted it out for me  (Chris Vaughan) but promised him a mention here. I did photograph the inside of the store.

Went out into the wet streets, which were quite full despite the rain. Lots of tourists in Abbey Square.

Went along Pulteney Bridge briefly,

Then up Milsom Street…

 At the bottom of Lansdown Hill had time to appreciate this little mews.

Caught the bus back the rest of the way home, and had a lovely warming lunch. Took Bella out a bit late later, and noticed many more photo opportunities, like the raindrops sitting on these leaves.

This rose was fresh out of its bath.

These foxgloves were still dripping.

Great walking past houses with raised front gardens - get an opportunity to see plants at eye level without lying down in a puddle!

Osteospermum flower.

On the side of this garage, it looks like some graffiti has been removed - the cleaning pattern hints tantalisingly at something quite interesting… 

Saw more of these plants I have been calling nettles. The more I look, the less confident I am in my classification. They grow alongside the more obvious nettle plants, and have the same fine hairs underneath their nettle-shaped leaves. I guess I'm going to have to test my naming system out by grasping one to find out if they sting!

 Raindrops on clover leaves.

False carrot leaves go a really nice shade of red after the flowers have finished blooming.

Came home to find another symptom of how wet it is - a snail halfway up our front window. It is still there three hours later…

This day a year ago, the weather in Bath was warm and dry. This suited us well, as we were still adjusting to the UK after Tuscany's hot temperatures. We were still catching up posting photos on the blog - this was the Campo in Siena the day before the twice-yearly Palio horse race. Lots of activity on the streets when we were there, and very exciting!

All this wet weather has got to us - we have been back from Greece nearly five weeks and are despairing of any warmth in the UK this year. So, we have booked a cheap holiday and are going back to Symi for a week next Wednesday night. The temperatures there are approaching 40ºC! Are we mad?:-)